


Feverdreamt

by songlin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Palace, Post-The Reichenbach Fall, Sickfic, Unresolved Sexual Tension, diverges from canon at series 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-06 22:22:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songlin/pseuds/songlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re...off. They shouldn’t be, not months on. Not when you consider that twenty-four hours after they met, John shot a man for him. Not with Sherlock. There’s never been anyone like him, anyone who slotted into John’s life like a plug into a socket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Frankly, I'm splitting this into chapters and posting it this early because I've been working on it for ages, am quite attached to it as is and need an excuse for it to be canon-divergent. If I post it after tomorrow...well, less of an excuse.
> 
> The rest should be done within two weeks.

At first it’s a bit of a dry cough, and that is ignorable.

Sherlock credits it to mold allergies or hay fever. (He has always pretended not to have them, but in actuality lives mostly on antihistamines for two to four months out of the year.) Then he’s tiring more quickly, sleeping more. He loathes it, but tolerates it for the time being as necessary periodic maintenance. Then it worsens, and he finds himself turning aside to hack up terrible, barking coughs into the crook of his elbow and attracting worried looks from Lestrade and the Yarders.

On December 11, he wonders if he’s running a temperature, and pushes the thought aside.

On December 12, he sulks on the sofa without speaking all day.

On December 13, he wakes up to find that he feels like he’s sleeping in a kiln and every single part of his body _aches_.

Even his _eyes_ hurt, Sherlock notes, blinking blearily at the bedside clock and realizes that it is, in fact, early evening. He throws off the stifling blankets and gathers the energy to stumble down the hall for paracetamol. Blinking through the bright light at the labels on the bottles, he finds them more difficult to read than expected. They remain stubbornly obscured by the _fucking_ fluorescent bathroom light and are consequently illegible. Unacceptable.

He gives up on the paracetamol, makes it as far as the hall before deciding the sofa is much, much closer than his bed, and bodily throws himself down onto it. The exertion seems to have been too much for him, and he starts coughing into his shoulder. He gasps in a shuddering breath and swallows down something thick and wet. His insides feel tight and shaky. His skin prickles with goosebumps. Cold, it’s _cold_ now. This means something that Sherlock cannot quite recall. He’ll worry about it later.

There’s a blanket on the top of the sofa. He pulls it down around his shoulders and face. His feet are still exposed, but just thinking about the amount of energy it would take to cover them is repulsive. Sherlock curls in on himself, pulls the blankets tight, and shivers.

The door slams. Sherlock winces. It feels like it’s echoing round his skull, which is not physically possible, but he imagines this is what it would feel like if it were.

“Could’ve fucking _skied_ home faster, the snow’s—Sherlock? Awake?”

He considers something that starts with “obviously,” but it would have too many syllables. Sherlock’s not in the mood for too many syllables at the moment. “Mmm,” he says instead, and knows John will understand.

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock turns his head toward the sound, but does not let his face emerge from under the blankets.

John kneels beside the sofa and pulls the blanket down. Sherlock scowls. The air is _frigid_ and now it’s on his _face_. He tugs it back up.

“Cold,” he offers as justification.

“Sherlock, are you...what’s wrong?”

He huddles miserably inwards. “Don’t feel well.”

John groans. “Of course. You’re sick. Lovely. Just _brilliant_. Exactly what I wanted for Christmas.”

Sherlock would like to apologize, but the need isn’t urgent enough to compel him to force out words.

“Have you taken anything?”

“You know I—”

“No, not—I mean, have you taken anything for the fever?”

“Couldn’t find it.”

“Oh, bloody _fantastic.”_

This time, Sherlock does apologize. “Sorry.”

John sighs and rubs his hand over his face. “You are going to be the death of me. You will _actually_ kill me someday.”

“Would _not,”_ Sherlock says. “I know what I’m doing.” He doesn’t, not at all, but since that’s not a state he’s used to, he’s going to pretend everything’s under control until it is.

John smiles and lays the back of his hand across Sherlock’s forehead. Sherlock flinches. “Chest hurt?”

Sherlock nods miserably.

“Short of breath?”

Nod.

“Cough? Chest pain?”

_“Everywhere_ pain.”

“Congratulations, Mr. Holmes, you’ve got the flu. Nothing for it but rest and fluids. You’ll be better in a week or so.”

Sherlock groans. A week is _seven_ _days_.

“Possibly longer, with the way you eat. Not to mention what years of smoking do to a fellow’s lungs.” John pats his shoulder. “Come on. I’m going to run out to the shops before we’re all buried in snow and you’re going lie down for a very, very long time.”

Sherlock doesn’t want to move. It is unpleasant outside of the blanket. Plus, he has a sneaking suspicion that if he tries to sit up, bad things will happen. He pulls the blanket back up over his head. “Warm enough here.”

“Yes, and it’s also where we live and near the food.”

Sherlock shakes his head.

“Plus, we have to go to the bathroom to get the paracetamol, and it’s faster to go to the bathroom and then to your room then to the bathroom and then all the way back here, isn’t it?”

That makes sense. Or more precisely, it doesn’t, so Sherlock will just nod until he can think straight enough to refute it properly. Besides, if he doesn’t move, John might move him. He’s done it before. Sherlock sits up and sways dangerously.

John links an arm through his. “Come on then. Up.”

Walking from the sofa to his room is more challenging than expected. He bashes his elbow on the doorjamb when John’s arm slips, which is surprising. He had been fairly sure he was supporting more of his own weight than John was.

“Powers of observation,” he grumbles, “going off. Everything’s _wrong,_ John.”

“Terribly wrong,” John says, perhaps a bit too agreeably. “Come on, bed.”

Bed! His bed is marvelous. It’s not usually so wonderful, but right now it’s positively the best thing in the universe. Sherlock curls into a ball and pulls the duvet round him. He only just manages to emerge when John returns with a glass of water and a pill.

“Fine,” Sherlock says. “I’m fine now.”

“And I’m the bloody prime minister. Take it or I’ll take you to hospital and they’ll put an IV in you.”

He’s reasonably sure John wouldn’t take him to hospital unless it was absolutely necessary. But Sherlock’s not confident in his own ability to know when “absolutely necessary” is at the moment, so he opts not to risk it and swallows the pill. The water’s very possibly the best thing he’s ever tasted.

“Phone’s on the bedside if you need anything.”

Sherlock nods and nestles into his pillows.

———

Sherlock’s been sick three times now since he came back to life in April.

The other two times weren’t bad, a 24-hour stomach bug and a brief round of strep throat earlier in the fall. He never used to get sick so often, barring the allergies he pretends not to have.

_Dying takes it out of a man._ John would know.

There’s a special on BBC2 about the Amish. John puts it on and ignores it while he updates his blog. He thinks about putting up a notice letting potential clients know they’ll be out of commission for a spell, but then thinks of what the criminals of London might do with the knowledge that Sherlock Holmes is indisposed and decides against it. Instead, he types up a bit more of his post on the case they’ve just finished, the one with the sex trafficking ring and the kidnapped red-haired girls.

_Was he like this while he was gone?_ The thought sits under John’s skin like an itch just out of reach. He thinks of Sherlock lying feverish and trembling on a bathroom floor, of cold sweat on pale clammy skin and hands too weak to wipe it away. He tries not to think of the new white scars on the insides of Sherlock’s arms or imagine them red and angry, haloed purple and yellow, radiating sharp red lines down his veins, and his stomach turns.

They still haven’t talked about it.

He showed up at the door in April. John threw him into a wall and swore a blue streak. Sherlock told him how he died and what he’d been doing for three years, then they chased down a sniper. And that should have been the end of it.

It’s not, though. John can’t put what it is into words, exactly, but it’s not _“it.”_ They’re...off. They _shouldn’t_ be, not months on. Not when you consider that twenty-four hours after they met, John shot a man for him. Not with _Sherlock_. There’s never been anyone like him, anyone who slotted into John’s life like a plug into a socket and fit. Even Mary—

Her name triggers a flash of pain in John’s chest. He winces.

_That’s not fair._ Of course Mary wasn’t Sherlock. No one’s like Sherlock.

_No. Mary was was much better at being ill._

John smiles a sad little smile and goes about making dinner.

———

Sherlock doesn’t sleep long. He didn’t expect to, but it’s still a bitter disappointment when the door swishes open.

John sets something down on the bedside table. “Sherlock?”

Sherlock rolls over and coughs into his arm.

“Look alive. I’ve brought dinner.”

Sherlock inhales slowly through his nose. Yes, now he’s paying attention, there it is. Chicken soup. He has a sudden, crystal-clear memory of being five and virulently ill, sleeping for half a day at a time in a room with moss-green wallpaper, and of someone bringing him chicken soup that they spooned into his mouth while he holds the bowl. His mother? The nanny? He can’t remember.

“Come on. Up. Feeding time.”

Sherlock curls further into the blankets.

“No better, then?”

He can manage disagreement. “Mm-mm.”

“Jesus. I’m getting the thermometer. In the meantime, do try to sit up and eat something.”

It occurs to Sherlock that perhaps he really ought to sit up and eat something. He grits his teeth, pushes the blankets off and throws his weight up and to the side.

He overcorrects and collapses. _Damn_.

Sherlock takes a moment to marshal his resources and try again. This time, he gets more or less upright. He reaches for the soup. Halfway there, the room tips sickeningly sideways and his vision blurs. He slumps back against the headboard, shuts his eyes and tries to catch his breath while he waits for the ringing in his ears to subside.

“Shit.”

Ah. John.

Sherlock rolls his head from side to side in his best approximation of disagreeableness. “Don’t bother,” he rasps. Speaking feels like stripping the lining from his throat, which is unexpected and really quite unpleasant. “I can--” Sherlock brings his head back up and slowly straightens.

“Obviously not, considering—would you _stop_ that?”

“—if you’ll just—”

Another nasty rush of dizziness knocks him back against the headboard. He scowls.

“Disorientation. Should pass. I’ve just got to—”

John sighs. “Come here, you big baby.”

Hands loop under his armpits and pull him up and pad his back with pillows so he can sit up without exerting too much effort. He sighs in relief, opens his eyes, and reaches for the tray.

“Nuh-uh.” John neatly catches Sherlock’s hand and sets the thermometer in it.

Sherlock scowls, but pops the thermometer into his mouth and holds it between his teeth. He taps his finger against the end until it beeps, then holds it in front of his face and squints at the little screen. The lines will not coalesce into legible numbers, like the labels on the bottles in the medicine cabinet earlier. Sherlock blinks until his eyes clear and he’s fairly sure he can make out the reading.

“Thirty-eight point six. Not bad.”

John plucks the thermometer from his fingers. “Thirty-nine even, in fact.”

Sherlock shrugs. John rolls his eyes, sets the thermometer on the tray, and holds out the bowl of soup. Sherlock moves to take it, thinks better, and takes only the spoon. John does not comment, and merely holds the bowl close enough for Sherlock to easily reach.

He thinks again of being small in the room with the green wallpaper. _It was Mycroft,_ he realizes, with a small pang of surprise.

When he has finished the soup, John passes him the glass of water. Sherlock takes a tentative sip. It runs ice-cold down his throat, and suddenly his body is flushing hot, everything is _hot,_ his face and throat and chest and the sweat beaded on his skin are all hot and sticky and unbearable. He gulps the water down, pushes the glass into John’s hand and crumples sideways onto the bed. He pushes the duvet down and pulls up the sheet.

“That’s you more or less settled, then,” says John. “I’m going to bed. Have a rest; you’ll feel better in the morning.”

“I shan’t, though,” Sherlock says miserably. “I’ll die here.”

“Oh, good, you’re well enough to engage in melodrama. Text me if you’re dying, will you?”

“Mm.”

Sherlock closes his eyes. At some point, John must have left, but Sherlock can’t recall it.

_Sleep._

It’s still scorching. How can he be expected to sleep under these conditions? He peels his shirt off and flings it in some indeterminate direction. Yes, better.

He lets his body go limp, heavy limbs sinking into the bed. His breathing slows and deepens— _inhale, out, inhale, out_. His pulse flutters quick and panicked in his throat.

As his breathing levels out, Sherlock feels something catch in his throat.

_No. No, don’t—nearly asleep, so close—_

He turns onto his side and coughs once, hoping that will be the end of it. But as soon as he feels the nasty wet squelch and the uncomfortable tightness in his chest and the clogged feeling in the back of his throat he knows it won’t be.

He coughs and coughs and coughs, gasps in a breath, and coughs some more. Even that isn’t the end if it. It goes on and on, terrible, hacking noises punctuated with desperate, shuddering gasps that only feed his lungs more air to waste. There’s something in his throat and it’s _choking_ him and what air he can get isn’t _enough_ and he really _is_ going to die—if he could just—just _stop_ —

A hand settles on his back, rubbing soothingly up and down. “Hey, hey, easy.”

The contact grounds Sherlock, stabilizing his rising panic.

“Breathe. Easy.”

_Yes._

Sherlock gets in one good, slow, deep breath, lets out one last, tremendous cough, and swallows salty mucus. He settles back down and closes his eyes.

John’s fingers are cold on his throat, a balm to his overheated skin. He presses into the touch. He sets his other hand on Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock hums in grateful satisfaction.

John’s hand shifts to the other half of his chest, then back again, and then back again. When he takes his hands away, Sherlock has to grit his teeth at the heat rushing back to the area. But then there’s a shockingly cold circle of metal pressing against the bare skin of his back. He jumps, then relaxes as it gradually warms to his skin. Sherlock lies complacent and still as John moves the stethoscope, holds, moves, holds.

Finally, John sits back and drapes the stethoscope around his neck. “We’ll go to the doctor in the morning.”

Sherlock shakes his head.

“Sherlock, you might have pneumonia. God only knows where you picked it up, but a round of antibiotics—”

“I’m allergic—” he says, but his voice comes out as a hoarse, inaudible rasp. He clears his throat, tries again. “Allergic to most antibiotics, including the ones they give you when you’re allergic to everything else. Penicillin, amoxicillin, et cetera.”

John rolls his eyes heavenward. “Of course you are.”

“Not technically _allergic_ to doxycycline, but it makes me rather severely photosensitive and I’d like to be able to set foot outside Baker Street within the next month. And I can’t take clarithromycin; gives false positives for cocaine. Could explain it away, but as staying clean is a condition of working with the police, I’d rather not risk it.” _And Mycroft knows,_ he thinks, but doesn’t say. _About when I was gone. It was hard when I was gone. I don’t want to tell you, but I had to do it. It was too hateful in my own head all the time. I needed something to help. You know, don’t you? You can see? I’m not hiding it, I’m not, I just—I don’t know how to—_

“We’ll find something. Well. So long as we’re not buried alive under the wrath of London winter.”

Sherlock swallows and winces. “Sorry.”

John looks at him strangely for a moment, then shakes his head. “Are you good to check your temperature when you wake up? I’m knackered.”

“Mm.”

“Okay then.”

John flips the light off and leaves the door open. Sherlock almost calls out for him, to let him know he forgot. Instead, he curls up, shuts his eyes, and shivers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't be too impressed at two in a day; this bit was already finished and just needed editing. Chapter 3 is about half done. Chapter 4, on the other hand...

John wakes late. He frowns when he sees the time. Usually he’s up with the sun. After checking out the window, it’s apparent why he hasn’t.

The weatherman reports an overnight snowfall of thirty centimeters. “Shit,” says John.

No way they’re getting to a doctor in this. He sighs. On the table, John’s phone chimes.

_Awake. Medication? SH_

John tucks the phone into his pocket and fetches a glass of water, a biscuit and the paracetamol. It may be a good sign that Sherlock can text, considering that yesterday he couldn’t read a thermometer.

_Of course, that could equally be Sherlock lying so I’d leave him be,_ he thinks, elbowing the door open.

Sherlock is lying half-curled on his side with his phone in hand, covered with the sheet. The duvet has been kicked over to the other side of the bed. His skin is visibly damp. A few errant curls are stuck to his brow.

John sets the tray on the bedside table, gingerly lays the back of his hand on Sherlock’s forehead and winces. Sherlock stirs, but does not open his eyes. John frowns.

“Sherlock?”

“Mm.”

Awake, then. John picks up the thermometer and sits on the edge of the bed. “Budge up. Got to check your temperature.”

Sherlock takes the thermometer, puts it under his tongue and rolls back over. John takes it when it beeps.

“Jesus _shit.”_ Thirty-nine point six.

Sherlock cracks an eye and glares. “Medication.” His voice is cracked and hoarse.

“Sit up a bit for me.”

Sherlock groans, but makes the effort. He shoves the duvet behind his back, downs the paracetamol and chugs the glass of water. He falls sideways and curls back up.

John is cleaning up, gathering the empty glass and the uneaten biscuit, when Sherlock speaks.

“It’s never bothered me before,” he mumbles.

“What hasn’t?”

“Bothering other people. But it bothers me now. Why does it bother me?”

_Fuck if I know._

The sudden, unprompted ferocity is startling.John shakes the thought off. Where did that come from? He’s not _that_ angry.

“I don’t know.”

“It does bother me.”

“Look at that, he’s a real boy after all.”

John immediately regrets it, but Sherlock doesn’t react. He’s just about to decide Sherlock has gone back to sleep when he speaks again.

“I’m sorry.”

John halts. His jaw flexes. He opens his mouth to reply, thinks better of it, and leaves, shutting the door behind him.

_That was probably unnecessary._

Was it? He’s not sure. Either way, he’s not dwelling. With a shake of his head, John sets about tidying up the kitchen.

John has taken the absence of Sherlock as an opportunity to clean the living room and kitchen. He doesn’t touch the fridge for fear of later reprisal, but something must be done about the countertops.

He holds his breath as he opens the bin and ties the bag shut. _You’d think I’d be accustomed,_ he thinks wryly, opening the window and shoving the bag out into the bins directly below.

Mary had done most of the housework, even towards the end. “If I’m to be a dead woman walking I’ll be a useful one,” she’d said, and didn’t look at all sad.

They met at the bus stop outside Bart’s. A sudden gust of wind blew her wig off and into the street. John got up to chase it, but Mary sighed and took a long drag of her cigarette.

“Just leave the fucking thing,” she said, and grinned.

She had only taken up smoking after her diagnosis, because she’d always wanted to try it. She took John to bed on their second date and proposed after six weeks.

“Honestly, I just think it’ll be good to have somebody I know planning the funeral,” she said. “Plus you’re a damn good cook and a better lay. Besides, the story will get you _mad_ cunt for the rest of your natural life. Or cock. _Do_ you like cock?”

John laughed in disbelief. “I like _you_. Fine, let’s do it.”

She only missed Sherlock by a little over a month. John was still throwing out half-used shampoo bottles and unopened blister packs of pills when he moved back into Baker Street.

He likes to think she’d have liked him. But when he really gives it thought, he’s fairly certain they would have driven each other up the wall. John smiles at the thought.

Having Mary had been good. They had cared about each other, and they’d both needed that. It was a marriage based on mutual survival more than love.

With a little twinge, John wonders which one of them survived.

———

Sherlock’s head aches, and his chest and throat, but none of these are worse than the percussive _click_ of the door shutting behind John.

He shuts his eyes and wakes into his mind palace.

There is a storm outside. Several of the corridors are dark. Where there is still power, the lights flicker dangerously with the resounding rumbles of thunder outside. Sherlock trembles and pulls his dressing gown tightly around his shoulders.

A sudden crack of lightning sounds outside. Sherlock jumps. It’s close, nearly close enough to strike.

Then something happens, something new and so entirely strange that it arrests Sherlock’s jangling nerves immediately.

Someone speaks.

“Sherlock.”

He looks up towards the dusty spiral staircase that leads to the attic. At the top, the lights are still steady and bright.

Again: “Sherlock.”

He climbs up the stairs.

On the attic level of Sherlock’s mind palace, there are two rooms. The one on the right is quite old. If Sherlock were to open the door, he would find himself in his childhood bedroom, the one with the yellow wallpaper. It is littered with knickknacks and the detritus of a scientifically-minded child, every piece of which is tied to a particular datum. In the attic rooms, it is mostly memories. Sherlock treats the right-hand bedroom like a basement storage room, a place to stow away what he cannot get rid of.

On the left is John’s room.

At first, it was as sparse as his bedroom in the flat. John’s gun in the nightstand contained his military history. His first aid kit under the bed, his medical and professional history. His mobile on the desk, his family and friends.

As time went by, the room filled up. Now, when Sherlock opens the door, he has to step around the pile of jumpers (the endearing forms John’s face takes when Sherlock has done something), the abandoned cane (John’s wounds, physical and otherwise), and a full set of army dress blues (the times he has killed) hung on the back of the door.

Sherlock smiles and lies down on the bed. Through the window, he can see that the rain has not slackened, although the storm seems less violent from here. He relaxes into the pillows and inhales. The room smells of wool and gun oil and cheap cream tea.

“There you are.”

Sherlock sits up.

A woman is standing in the doorway. Sherlock recognizes her but cannot recall her name. She is holding something in her hand.

“I expected you would be in here,” Sherlock says. “Well. Logically speaking. No one’s ever been here before.”

“I’m exceptional,” she says mildly. “I was in the next room.”

Sherlock’s heart sinks. He knows what is in the woman’s hand. He can see it now, the yellow feathers un-crumpling as she uncurls her fingers.

It had flown into his window, a young thing who only just learned to fly. Sherlock had opened the window, intending to gather an interesting corpse, but it twitched to life when he set it down on the table.

After that, there was a lot of jumping onto surfaces with a butterfly net in hand and the breaking of glass test tubes and a good deal of screaming from Mummy, but Sherlock eventually captured his prize.

He ensconced the bird in a cage recovered from the attic and named it Popper, after the scientist. After a consultation with Mycroft's biology textbook, it was discovered that he was a common firecrest and was also, in fact, a she. Sherlock concluded that there were an insufficient number of noteworthy female scientists to serve as namesakes and kept “Popper.”

Sherlock as a child did not yet have the narrow-minded focus that would define his knowledge later on. He wanted to know _everything_ , and then he got hold of a tiny living being, a microcosm of the universe, all his. He fed her crickets from the garden and from the pet store, kept her in the dark all day and then the light, played her Bach and Mozart and Massenet and Saint-Saëns. When winter came, he turned the heat up in his room. And then one day, he opened the cage door.

That time, when she flew into the window, she did not twitch back to life.

Sherlock looks at the limp little body and feels his mouth twist. “Put her back.” Popper rests on the windowsill of his room, and not in her empty cage. Both are tied to memories.

The woman’s face is smooth and unrumpled. “You didn’t, you know.”

Because this is a dream, Sherlock knows what she means. “I _did_. Why else would—”

“You didn’t open the door, Sherlock.”

“Then why is he angry?”

The woman—and Sherlock knows who she is now—sets the bird down and smiles, not cruelly. “You don’t know.”

“But _you—”_

“You don’t know, so I can’t know.” There is a sudden boom of thunder, and Sherlock starts. He had forgotten the storm. “You have to—”

Lightning crackles outside, deafeningly close. The lights go dark.

Sherlock gasps into wakefulness and coughs and coughs. For a moment, he thinks he is still asleep, because it is as dark here as it was in his mind palace. Then he gets in a breath, and his vision clears.

He sags back onto the bed and gulps in air. Gradually, the ringing in his ears eases, and he soaks in the silence.

_There was a woman,_ he thinks, _and something I was to remember._

But in the brutal light of consciousness, Sherlock can feel the memories slipping between his fingers.


	3. Chapter 3

John sleeps on the couch.

He’s not sure why he does it, to be honest. His bedroom isn’t so far away that he’d not hear if there was an emergency. Maybe the proximity makes him feel like he’s more of a help.

In any case, it means that when Sherlock crashes to the bathroom floor at three in the morning, John is up on his feet and kneeling beside him almost immediately.

Sherlock waves a dismissive hand. “No, don’t, I’m fine. Was just getting water.”

“Like hell. Come on, I’ll help you up.”

He gets behind Sherlock, loops his arms under Sherlock’s and hauls him to his feet. Sherlock gets his arm around John’s shoulders. John takes a few testing steps and Sherlock follows, letting John support his weight. Sherlock stumbles sideways on their way into the bedroom and barks his elbow on the door frame.

John sits him on the bed and doesn’t let him lie back. “Hold on just a second. Can you sit up for me?”

Sherlock’s head tips forward onto John’s shoulder. It’s warm, despite the layer of dark hair and clothing between skin and skin, and smells very human, like shampoo and skin cells and perspiration. The smell puts a dark pit in John’s guts.

“Feels like my neck won’t hold my head up,” Sherlock says. “I’m—I’m seriously concerned, John.”

“So am I. Christ, you’re a mess.” John feels Sherlock’s head again. “Jesus, Sherlock.” He moves to get up, just to fetch the thermometer, but the hand on his wrist stops him.

“No, don’t, please,” Sherlock says in a rush. His face is wrecked with misery. John’s pulse throbs. “Please, I—need you. Here.”

It’s the fever, John tells himself. The fever, the lack of sleep...whatever it is, it’s not Sherlock.

But he doesn’t leave.

He helps Sherlock onto his side, swings his legs up onto the bed, lies down facing him and pulls the sheets up. Sherlock is starting to shiver again.

“I’m dying,” Sherlock whispers. “Am I dying? I must be. Yes. I am.”

John’s face twists. “You’re not—Sherlock, you’re—”

“I don’t want to die again, John.”

John’s throat feels tight. He swallows.

“I’m sorry, John, I don’t want to keep you from—”

“But you’re not sorry, are you?”

It’s out of his mouth before he can stop himself. It’s just it’s been so _long_ , and he’s _so_ tired, so _fucking_ tired.

“You apologize for everything now. All the time, ‘I’m sorry, John.’ You’re sorry you set the oven on fire. You’re sorry you replaced the milk with bull spunk and didn’t buy a new carton. You’re sorry you got the flu. But you’re not sorry for—for leaving. For making me think you were dead. Is it because it doesn’t matter as much to you? Or is it just that you only say you’re sorry when I’m angry and you want me to stop? Is that it? Fucking consider me _angry.”_

It’s not fair, what he’s doing, and John knows it. But he can’t stop, he _can’t,_ it’s just been _such_ a long time coming.

“Do you expect me to just understand and forget? Move on? Jesus Christ, Sherlock, I _mourned_ you. I know—I _know_ your reasons, I do, but you could have left me something. You told _Mycroft,_ for God’s sake, and all you left me with was your fucking _note,_ that _fucking_ call, made me think he’d gotten to you, ruined you, made you— _you_ —give up, and I—it nearly destroyed me, Sherlock. And you’re sorrier about the fucking _milk.”_

Sherlock takes in John’s speech with wide, glassy eyes. When John stops, Sherlock blinks slowly and looks away.

“It’s…not like that.”

“Then WHAT IS IT?” John shouts. He halts immediately, rubs a shaky hand over his face, composes himself, and tries again. “What is it? But I—I just don’t know.”

Sherlock swallows with an audible gulp. “I...I _am_ sorry,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry a thousand times over. I didn’t know it would do this to you.”

Something red pops behind John’s eyes. “Didn’t— _didn’t know it would—”_

“I—please, John, let me—they were going to kill you, kill everyone, and I did what I did to stop that. I couldn’t think about the rest then, and then there was work. Had to make it safe to come home. Thought that when I did, you’d be…pleased. But there was Mary, and…I forget, sometimes, that you can live without me, because I—” He breaks off in a coughing fit. John lays a hand on his back without thinking, rubbing gently as Sherlock coughs and coughs. “It’s different for me,” he says finally.

Rage is still simmering in John’s chest, but it’s calmer now. He’s becoming less soldier by the minute and more doctor. The man in his arms may be infuriating and in need of a solid beating, but at the moment he is very sick indeed. John will definitely give him that beating someday soon, but first he has to heal him.

“Just so you know,” he says at last, “I’m still pretty fucking furious with you.”

“Yes.”

“But I get it. A little.”

Sherlock sighs out in relief and tucks his arms in close to his chest. He’s still trembling, but not as badly as he was earlier. John lays the back of his hand across Sherlock’s forehead. At the contact of skin to skin, Sherlock moans in relief. John’s face flushes warm.

“John,” Sherlock murmurs.

John’s chest expands and contracts around his heart, stomach roiling and limbs tingling. He allows himself to draw the back of his hand down Sherlock’s face and into his hair, stroking gently back and forth. Sherlock sighs. John’s throat clenches.

“We will talk about it later. But...not now.”

“I…” Sherlock clears his throat. “Thank you.”

John’s chest feels tight and stretched like an overinflated balloon. An urge is rising up in him, impossible to choke down, not when Sherlock is right here and all he had to do is lean forward and—

But before he can act, Sherlock moves first. Just as John tucks a damp, stray curl away from Sherlock’s face, Sherlock catches John’s hand and brushes a kiss against the back of his knuckles. John gasps, but does not pull away.

Sherlock presses John’s hand between both of his and pulls it under his chin as well with a contented little sigh. “You do so much for me,” he says. “I’ll repay you someday.”

John’s mouth is dry and sticky. He can’t muster much, but he manages a clipped “yeah.”

Sherlock nods, curls in closer, and shuts his eyes.


End file.
